I plan to write a book entitled The Fertility Trilema which will be released in first draft form as a series of Hive posts.
1. Introduction - A personal story
I recently attended the Bat Mitzvah of the daughter of a good friend, Sarah, a mid-50s single-Mum-by-choice.
I was struck by a reflection in her speech when she spoke of having dreamt as a 14 year old of getting married early and having 4 kids. She even had names picked for them, 3 sensible ones and the fourth after her favourite drink at the time: Tequila!
In our social circle there are a great many single-Mums-by-choice. One friend just had her first child at 55, on her own and still looked amazing in the hospital a day after the birth - she has the blood of a Persian Princess.
Quite a few of our single-Mum-by-choice friends have two kids and I asked one of them (also a British Olah like Sarah) a few weeks ago whether she would have had kids on her own if she had remained in England. She said flatly that she couldn't have afforded it. I also noted that UK society would also not have been as accepting and supportive as Israeli society is.
Single-Mums-by-choice is a huge phenomenon in Israel, particularly in Tel Aviv where I live. Indeed I am often the only adult male at social gatherings with kids.
Its prevalence is a uniquely Israeli response to twin global crises of rising loneliness & childlessness.
Throughout the developed world people are struggling to find life partners and having far fewer children than they want to. The rate of partnering and marriage has fallen dramatically and the rate of childlessness has risen to catastrophic levels.
The phenomenon of the involuntarily celibate (incels) is real and fast growing across the developed world. It is not confined to men and is even more prevalent in Asia than The West, with the term Diaosi used in China and Hikikomori (a particular form of reclusive celibacy) used in Japan. I have witnessed people afflicted by it speaking quite openly about on Hive and even first hand at HiveFest.
In many countries the rate of childlessness at age 40 has risen from 5-10% to 30-50%!
This is a personal tragedy because a large percentage of these women wanted to have kids. Indeed the Biblical Sarah struggled mightily with childlessness and the misery it creates until God granted her a child, Issac, at the ripe old age of 90!
It is also a civilisational crisis because it is the main cause of ultra low fertility which will lead to the collapse of most civilisations unless there are dramatic and unprecedented changes in fertility rates & trends.
The Fertility Trilema
All these themes converge into a simple concept - The Fertility Trilema - which I will be exploring in this book.
This is the concept that, with a single exception, it appears impossible for any civilisation to simultaneously combine three desirable characteristics:
- Prosperity
- Technology
- Fertility
It is well established and almost axiomic in demography circles that as a society's wealth & prosperity rises, fertility (TFR) falls.
This is evident both across today's world and also from studying history.
A newer phenomenon is also that as access to technology rises, particularly phones & the internet, fertility falls.
A survey of today's world reveals the following types of civilisations:
- The developed world (USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, Japan, Korea etc) with high prosperity, high technology & very low fertility (TFR 0.7 - 1.5).
- Traditional, agrarian, undeveloped societies (mostly in Africa) with low prosperity, low technology & high fertility (TFR 3+).
- Developing countries with medium prosperity, medium technology & mostly low fertility (TFR less than 2.1 replacement rate). A couple of exceptions worth examining here.
- Groups within the developed world like The Amish & Memonites who combine high prosperity, low technology (a deliberate rejection of modern technology and an agrarian lifestyle) and very high fertility (TFR 5+).
- A single Jewish civilisation comprising all Jewish Israelis and observant Orthodox Jews outside Israel who combine high prosperity, high technology & high fertility (TFR 3+).
This book will examine the themes introduced above and their consequences, explore how & why Jewish civilisation seems uniquely able to overcome The Fertility Trilema and whether other civilisations can adapt applicable lessons.